Protests against tech giants and their impact on the San Francisco Bay Area economy just got personal.

According to an anonymous submission on local news site Indybay, an unknown group of protesters targeted a Google engineer best known for helping to develop the company’s self-driving car.

After arriving at the Berkeley home of Anthony Levandowski on Tuesday morning, the protesters distributed a flier (PDF) complaining of his role in developing Google Street View and, more recently, his spearheading a new condominium development in downtown Berkeley. Protesters say this development is linked to a design firm that has done work for the US military.

Ars' attempts to contact the anonymous group, which calls itself “counterforce,” were unsuccessful. Levandowski and Google also didn't respond to inquiries.

The protest against Levandowski came the same day that the San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority (SFMTA) voted for the first time to take action regulating Google, Facebook, Apple, and a number of other large tech companies that shuttle workers in private, Wi-Fi-enabled buses from San Francisco and the East Bay to points south in Silicon Valley.

A “cyber-capitalist utopia?”

Levandowski was profiled in a November 2013 article in The New Yorker (which, like Ars Technica, is owned by Condé Nast), detailing his daily 43-mile commute via a Google self-driving car from Berkeley to Mountain View.

“In rush-hour traffic, it can take two hours, but Levandowski doesn’t mind. He thinks of it as research,” the magazine reported.

Counterforce’s main complaint was that Google has recently acquired Boston Dynamics, a military robotics contractor, and that this fact, combined with Levandowski’s background in automated vehicles, is a frightening prospect. Beyond that, they wrote: “Anthony Levandowski is currently trying to create his own cyber-capitalist utopia in the great city of Berkeley," citing Levandowski's purchase of a property that he wants to develop into a 77-unit apartment building designed by the Nautilus Group.

Counterforce’s flyer includes paragraphs like these:

The Nautilus Group is composed of designers and builders who have created military installations, malls, and hospitals. Levandowski is now making his contribution to the further sterilization and gentrification of Downtown Berkeley and Shattuck Avenue.

The proposed project is a testament to the arrogance, disconnection, and luxury of the ruling class. Growing their own vegetables in a rooftop garden and selling them to other wealthy people allows them, somehow, to pretend that the planet is not being ravaged by the same economy they depend on for their wealth, comfort, and safety.

The flyer also includes passages that detail the engineer's morning routine in creepy detail:

Preparing for the action, we watched Levandowski step out of his front door. He had Google Glasses over his eyes, carried his baby in his arm, and held a tablet with his free hand. As he descended the stairs with the baby, his eyes were on the tablet through the prism of his Google Glasses, not on the life against his chest. He appeared in this moment like the robot he admits that he is.

There are men and women in the Congo, slaving away in giant pits in order to extract gold and other precious metals from the earth. This gold will go into phones and tablets made by companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Anthony Levandowski has never worked in a pit mine nor will his children. People like him are exempt from this type of degrading and exploitative labor. Instead, he can casually stare at his screens as if there was not human blood making this technology possible, as if there was not a life in his hands.

After protesting at his home for 45 minutes, the group marched to a Google bus pickup in South Berkeley and blocked it for about 30 minutes.

"We did get a call at 8:18 am from Google security saying that protesters were blocking a bus at the 3100 block of Adeline St. [at the Ashby BART station], but as we were arriving a BART Police officer had also arrived on the scene. Basically when we were pulling up on scene, there were approximately maybe 10 protesters in front of the bus. As we were approaching, the BART officer told them that they needed to disperse from the roadway. They got out of the roadway and dispersed, they complied. We didn’t have any other further reports or calls for service."

Officer Coats added that this was the first such anti-Google protest that she was aware of in Berkeley.

Protests heating up

The confrontation occurred against a backdrop of national press attention on the issue of shuttle buses used by tech companies like Google and Facebook to pick up San Francisco-based employees.

In recent months, the buses have again become a tangible lightning rod for people concerned about the impact that the tech boom has on the local economy (protests first began in 2008). In recent years, rents have skyrocketed regionally (especially in San Francisco), and prices continue to go up in many areas. In December 2013, some protesters attacked a Google bus in nearby Oakland. Others have responded by making miniature art.

Yesterday, a committee of San Francisco supervisors voted for a proposal in which the companies will have to pay $1 per day for each stop where passengers are picked up or dropped off. SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose told Ars that this measure won't take effect until approved by local voters later this spring.

Last week, in a survey (PDF) of 130 San Francisco-based Google commuters conducted by the University of California, Berkeley graduate students found that 40 percent of respondents said they would move out of San Francisco and somewhere closer to their job if the luxury bus program did not exist. The survey also found that respondents were overwhelmingly male (69 percent), unmarried (76 percent), renters (85 percent), and made over $100,000 or more (67 percent).

Promoted Comments

Singling out employees does not change corporate culture. Stalking and attacking individuals is a sure fire way to lose public support. And this odd fixation against self driving cars just strikes me as strange.

324 Reader Comments

I can see the point the protesters are making, and even agree to an extent, but showing up at an employee's house rather than company property seems like going over a line. Don't most of the people who dislike Google dislike the level of creepy-ass surveillance they perform? How is it not hypocritical to spy on this guy?

Singling out employees does not change corporate culture. Stalking and attacking individuals is a sure fire way to lose public support. And this odd fixation against self driving cars just strikes me as strange.

Okay, I don't get it. One of the greatest communications tools humanity has EVER created was first created by a government funded institution primarily for the use of government defense and militaristic purposes. The Internet (arpanet), of course. There are many, many more such items that we take for granted today (toilet paper) because a government funded institution's employees came up with some idea.

True, I don't agree that we should be tracked via GPS or other methods while we move freely around our communities, state and country. However, to protest against an automated automobile engineer is just silly. If we can remove human error out of transportation (as long as the automated systems are performing precisely), all the better for humanity. Perhaps we can get to work without slow downs because someone tapped their brake and the three people behind, who weren't paying attention, slammed their brakes, thus causing a flow stoppage and we have to wait a half an hour (instead of 10 minutes) for the flow to pick back up.

I wonder how the protestors would have grown up if they had not been sucking on the technology nipple. They seem disturbed that they had a chance in life and they blame the technology that allowed that to happen...

Interesting how their anti-Google flyer is made of text on an image taken with a Google technology (Google Street View).I would not say that it is clever or that it is not, but it certainly is interesting

And the irony of the privacy invasion, through the display of that engineer's name and address is as interesting - in a creepier way.

The proposed project is a testament to the arrogance, disconnection, and luxury of the ruling class. Growing their own vegetables in a rooftop garden and selling them to other wealthy people allows them, somehow, to pretend that the planet is not being ravaged by the same economy they depend on for their wealth, comfort, and safety.

workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your locavore rooftop gardens.

The moral? Don't bust your butt going to school, learning your craft, and developing products tailored to the demand signal in your industry, then dare to move somewhere were people who haven't done those things (or really, anything) live. They don't like that.

I can see the point the protesters are making, and even agree to an extent, but showing up at an employee's house rather than company property seems like going over a line. Don't most of the people who dislike Google dislike the level of creepy-ass surveillance they perform? How is it not hypocritical to spy on this guy?

All they did is post a flier and a picture of his home. So when Google publishes your homes front and address on the Internet is ok but when others do it for Google employees its wrong?

You do realize that picture is exactly the same what Google street does.

Actually strike that. Google publishes your home front and TOP since they also have Google maps. Next they are going to publish the inside structure with some radio scanner that scans buildings or send drones inside your garden.

Just joking. But this people have a point. Google wants data. Remember that. And since there services are free they need data as much as they can in order to profit from it. So if nobody says anything, how far should we let Google, Facebook go?

I´m sorry for those having children in this decade. Their children are never going to know what is privacy, like making a mistake or something embarrassing and having the change to regret and put it to the past. Today nothing is private anymore, everything you ever said or did will be store for ever, so there are no way someone, in particular young people will be able to forget their past and are going to be hunted by it thanks to the social networks and all this private information sharing.

We are entering a world where everyones is watching, well, strike that again. Only a few companies are watching everyone, not the world.

I guess I just feel like doing things that are literally the thing you are protesting is not really the right way of protesting. Nobody waterboards war criminals to show why torture is wrong or shuts down bridges to show why Chris Christie is an asshole.

I do understand the worries about privacy.But a selfdriving car is not about losing your privacy. It is perfectly possible to make a driverless car that does not communicate anything to the google (or similar) servers.

Wether google decides to this or not, is not up to the employee that designs the systems in the selfdriving car.

Is there anything I can do to give this guy my support? I think I'm going to send a check. No one deserves to be harassed like this. I hope those protesters get arrested for harassing this man on his own property!

To the commentators who write that they "do the same as Google" : I don't believe that Google exposes a particular, singled-out house to the rest of the world with the name and profession of the owner.Google indiscriminately provides the data, whereas those people target a single individual for a particular cause.. That's another game.

I do understand the worries about privacy.But a selfdriving car is not about losing your privacy. It is perfectly possible to make a driverless car that does not communicate anything to the google (or similar) servers.

Wether google decides to this or not, is not up to the employee that designs the systems in the selfdriving car.

Well, the car would likely use traffic information to plan a smarter route. But it's technically true that a connection isn't strictly required.

You do realize that picture is exactly the same what Google street does.

Actually strike that. Google publishes your home front and TOP since they also have Google maps.

Not true, actually. Does Google post your full name with the address and picture of your house together? Nope. But all of this is still readily accessible at the county clerk's office... which is still just a click away in some cases. That they have a recent picture of my manicured yard is immaterial to the type of data anyone has access.

In recent months, the buses have again become a tangible lightning rod for people concerned about the impact that the tech boom has on the local economy (protests first began in 2008).

Quite possibly the dumbest protest issue I've seen in a long time.

Let's say that Silicon Valley didn't exist at all. San Francisco would be a ghost town on it's way to Detroit (or at least San Bernadino). The one thing that has kept San Fran going has been the tech industry.

I can see the point the protesters are making, and even agree to an extent, but showing up at an employee's house rather than company property seems like going over a line. Don't most of the people who dislike Google dislike the level of creepy-ass surveillance they perform? How is it not hypocritical to spy on this guy?

That "creepy-ass" part strikes me more appropriately thought of as the message than the medium. This might be their point? EDIT: Or maybe they are completely blind to the irony. *shrug*

You do realize that picture is exactly the same what Google street does.

Actually strike that. Google publishes your home front and TOP since they also have Google maps.

Not true, actually. Does Google post your full name with the address and picture of your house together? Nope. But all of this is still readily accessible at the county clerk's office... which is still just a click away in some cases. That they have a recent picture of my manicured yard is immaterial to the type of data anyone has access.

Yeah, there's a pretty large difference between saying "this house exists at this address and looks like so" and "this individual lives at this particular address, go over there and do something."

These people need to get jobs. Of course they will complain they can't get jobs because people like them are trying to shut down companies that make jobs.

While I'm not someone who would love a self driving car, as per earlier comments, it could save the life of many a drunk driver victim. Not to mention being tired and coming home from a long day the office or jobsite.

As for the buses, I don't see a problem with what they are doing. It saves the company money by providing an employee benefit that allows them to pay lower salaries, and lowers the cost of working for the employee. It is a literal win-win. If the transit authority doesn't like it they should learn to compete and quit being a bully.

As for the military, who cares? As has been pointed out the Internet came from the military. The space program came from the military. Most medical breakthroughs have come from the military during times of war. If they are against the military, they should grab the first plane to Afghanistan and go hug it out with the Taliban.

They aren't against car-pooling, they are against people who make good money buying/living in "their" neighborhood and jacking up rents/costs.

It's complete nonsense, and flies directly into the face of common sense.

What's wrong with increasing property values? Hold out and let the property value increase and, when you're ready to sell, your investment has been very profitable.

Rents, of course, are another thing. But it's not like the property owner owns the property cost free. They still have taxes to pay among other costs. And, in CA, those taxes keep increasing without improved services or increased economy - except to raise the rent. And "the rent is d*** high."